1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a child safety seat for an automobile. The safety seat is to be mounted on an original seat of an automobile for safely seating a child in the automobiles. More particularly, the invention relates to an improvement of a belt which is provided on such a child safety seat for an automobile for holding the body of the child.
2. Description of the Background Art
In general, a child safety seat for an automobile comprises a crotch belt extending upwardly from a seat surface and between the thighs of a seated child and shoulder belts which extend from a backrest and pass along the shoulders of the child. A buckle is mounted on an end of the crotch belt so that the shoulder belts are detachably coupled to the buckle. The safety seat may also comprise hip belts that pass along the hips of the child, and are also detachably coupled to the buckle. The hip belts may be integrally formed with the shoulder belts.
The aforementioned shoulder belts and the like are coupled to the buckle after the child is seated on the child safety seat for an automobile. The shoulder belts and the like are detached from the buckle when the child is helped out of the seat.
Before the child is seated on the aforementioned child safety seat, the crotch belt is in an arbitrary state on the seat surface, for example. In other words, the crotch belt may be bent or twisted in any shape. Therefore, the buckle mounted on the end of the crotch belt is in an arbitrary position and an arbitrary state on the seat surface, for example, while its front and back sides arbitrarily face in any direction.
When the child is seated in this state, the crotch belt and the buckle may be located under the buttocks of the child, which is uncomfortable for the child and inconvenient for the person who is seating the child. In order to avoid this, the user must separate the crotch belt and the buckle from the seat surface before seating the child, so that the same are not located under its buttocks. If the crotch belt and the buckle are not first removed from the seat and they become located under the buttocks of the child, then the user must draw out the buckle from under the child's buttocks by pulling the crotch belt. Such operations are relatively troublesome.
Further, the user must properly orient the front and back sides of the buckle in front of the body of the child, to be able to couple the shoulder belts and the like to the buckle. However, the crotch belt carrying the buckle is so easily twisted, which reverses the buckle, so that the user simply holding the buckle may have to turn over the buckle for coupling the shoulder belts thereto. In this case, the user must take care to turn over the buckle in the proper direction for untwisting the crotch belt to its original or proper state. This also complicates the operation of coupling the shoulder belts to the buckle.
Even if the buckle is in a correct direction, the user may inadvertently couple the shoulder belts to the buckle when the crotch belt is in a twisted state. In this case, the crotch belt feels uncomfortable between the thighs of the seated child. In addition, the crotch belt may injure the child when an impact is applied to the automobile by abrupt braking or the like.
The crotch belt is adapted to cooperate with the shoulder belts to hold the body of the child in the safety seat when an impact is applied to the automobile by abrupt braking or the like. However, it is preferably to prevent the crotch belt from pinching the child when such an impact occurs.